


Foreseeing Harsh Winters

by fewlmewn



Series: Original Stories [14]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Fae & Fairies, Fae Magic, Fairy Tale Curses, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:41:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21911605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fewlmewn/pseuds/fewlmewn
Summary: Forsythia Forsoth is a simple elven girl, with a distant claim to the seat of power to the City her family's held for centuries. She loves nature, and she loves the spring - until she doesn't anymore.
Series: Original Stories [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1043202
Kudos: 2





	Foreseeing Harsh Winters

Forsythia Forsoth, 43rd in line to the throne held for generations by her family, was born on a late winter day. So late, in fact, that it was nearing spring. And said winter had been so temperate, in fact, to be quite warm and pleasant. Fragrant salty breezes wafted across the coast, reaching the looping country roads deeper into the Hold, all the while the scent of flowering orchards had already started to rise from the Jade Plains, behind the small manor of one of many collateral branches of the Forsoth lineage.

A beautiful shrub of Forsythia had been the first to awaken, timidly but confident in its beauty in the welcoming climate of the valley. Since Forsythia’s mother had been fondly following the shrub’s growth throughout the last few months of her pregnancy, it was only natural that the name of such a resplendent flower would be the first on her lips when the family asked of news of the newborn child. Her husband had immediately agreed, despite the unexpected, one-sided decision, on the grounds that their beautiful daughter already sported a glimmering crown of soft golden hair.

As a child, little Forsythia runs unashamed and barefooted across the garden, stirring earthworms with her growing curiosity and inspecting every butterfly and beetle across her path with studious glee. Her three older siblings, taken with less fun activities such as learning accounting and history, watch her with bored gazes from the patio. Her mother and father already picture their little buttercup busy studying nature and botany.

When she’s a little bit older, Tippy - such is the pet name she’s started using among friends to seem less snobbish - visits the Arboretum in Jasper for the first time. It’s a week-long journey north, but sat in the carriage snuggled between her mother and her older brother, she feels incredibly safe. The people chatting in the taprooms of each roadside inn mention their fancy garments and gossip about the dangers of the roads, but Tippy reckons no one would be interested in them. They’re not very important to the rest of the family, so perhaps even bandits wouldn’t bear them a second thought. As long as they don’t mention their family name.

Fear of kidnapping has been a staple of Tippy’s education, but as soon as they reach Jasper proper, every worry dissipates in front of the grandiosity of the Botanical Gardens. Blackburn Academy is right outside the Keep’s walls, where the Lord and Lady of Jasper have kindly offered a guest room for the visiting nobles - perhaps confusing them with more relevant members of the family - and Tippy spends most of her days in the city exploring the Arboretum annexed to the library, while her brother zealously studies next door.

The variety of colors enchants her. There are waxy, dark green leaves as big as her hand, small bundles of flowers with curly petals, producing a cloying sweet smell; the branches of trees she’d never seen before extend to the glass vaulted ceiling, and sunshine ripples against the translucent, ethereal vestiges of a Monarch butterfly’s chrysalis.

Tippy is ecstatic, and when time to return home rolls around, she can’t hide her disappointment.

At least, the fragrant flower beds and her darling, namesake forsythia shrub will welcome her with open arms, and she’ll spend the rest of summer playing in the garden and making notes on this and that little bug, her efforts bolstered by new knowledge learned in Jasper.

When she’s a teen, Tippy is invited to the City to spend time with her dearest cousin Ciliren, a handful of years older than her. While her mother and father are busy with the rest of the family during the Committee that takes place at the beginning of summer in Forsoth, Cili shows Tippy around. When they’re not busy attending official dinners and family meetings, and offering pleasantries to dashing Guild members and nobles from all over the country, they visit haberdasheries, jewelers and, upon Tippy’s near nagging request, Cili finally accompanies her to the Hall of Knowledge, which doesn’t offer much in the way of botany, but has some interesting information on tides and the seas.

Ciliren is such a beautiful young woman. Tippy isn’t half bad herself, with gold speckled skin, a sharp freckled nose and long, thin and even sharper ears, and the bright crown of hair she’s so proud of. But Cili is more elegant. Effortlessly so. The several degrees of separation between them must account for something, and she looks like a true member of the Forsoths, despite being in turn twice or thrice removed from the inner family. Tippy knows enough to recognize that while her own invitation was extended out of courtesy, Ciliren must’ve been summoned to the Palace with the intent to introduce her to some other distant cousin. She pictures Cili wrapped in a silken white wedding gown, with a thin circlet of gold and Beryl River pearls. Her hair is beautiful, platinum blond and cascading in ringlets across her shoulders, and her upturned nose is made less snooty by her kind, warm smile below. Her ears are rounder than Tippy’s and, much to her surprise, she noticed that Cili must’ve gotten permission to pierce them since the two last saw each other. Two beautiful diamond earrings drip from her lobes, and a small, pink and misshapen pearl ornates one ear, further up towards the tip.

She’s beautiful, and Tippy very much hopes she’ll be her maid of honor once she marries.

They’re retiring for the evening, and the next day Tippy will have to return home with the rest of her family, so the two girls giggle well into the night before laying in bed next to each other to make the most of the time they have left. Ciliren and her family live in a beautiful, modestly-sized mansion in the Pinnacle, the Elven quarter, and there are a well-kept park and a bakery with fragrant pastries and loaves of bread one street over, and already Tippy can’t wait to spend her last morning in Forsoth sketching branches with a berry tartelette on a napkin across her lap.

After getting into their nightgowns and laying into bed, surrounded by darkness, the two girls keep whispering nonsense, making the other burst into hushed cackling, until they’re forced to stop before yet another fit of laughter threatens to wake Cili’s little brother, who’s currently sleeping in a comfy cot at the feet of the bed.

Sleep’s about to overtake them when Tippy remembers something from the previous night, forgotten during the busy day they’ve had. She turns, looks intently at the spot where she thinks Ciliren’s face should be and says, “It just occurred to me… I had a strange dream last night.”

“What was it?” replies her cousin before yawning, too curious to let Tippy’s words go unheard.

“Well, I was in the middle of a forest. All the trees were barren, and the ground was white with frost. Snow was starting to fall in heavy flakes. But it was a dream, right? So of course I wasn’t feeling any colder...

Anyway, I was standing there, and in front of me was a small pond. It was frosted over, like a mirror. And beyond the pond was a beautiful elf… “

Tippy’s voice goes dreamy with infatuation, and the sentence hangs in midair before Cili catches it and responds, her tone betraying a hint of worry, “An… elf? Are you sure?”

“Yes. At least… I think he was. He was very tall, wearing white furs and with long hair that glimmered like diamonds. He was unmoving, like an ice sculpture, but his hand was outstretched and-”

“Wait, it was? Uhm, I’m not sure it was an elf… “ she turns to face Tippy a bit better, but her face is just as hidden in the dark as before.

“At any rate,” Tippy interrupts her train of thought, “it was a dream. It doesn’t matter who it was.” Cili hums her disagreement, but cannot get another word in before Tippy continues.

“So I looked at the pond, and the ice seemed sturdy enough to me, so I started walking across to reach him.

I took one step,

then another step,

by the third I was already halfway, and the elf looked so beautiful I couldn’t wait another second to get closer! But when I went to step further yet, that’s when the ice cracked with a rumble under my feet, and I fell into the freezing water.

It was so bone-chillingly cold. My body seized up and I kept sinking. It went on and on and on. It had looked like an innocuous pond, but it was hiding a deep, black hole, filled with freezing water. I knew I was dreaming, so I tried to stay calm - I wanted to know what would’ve happened next. I was just overcome with panic, you see. But not the kind that makes you thrash and swim upwards with all your might. No.

I just kept worrying about running out of air, about freezing to death before reaching the bottom of that pond. I didn’t want to wake up before seeing where it would’ve led, but I was so preoccupied thinking that if I stopped breathing, or if I got too cold, I would’ve woken up. So I was afraid, but not for the reasons you’d imagine.

And then, as I was busy thinking that I mustn’t stop breathing, every bubble my body produced around me as I fell became breathable, and I gulped them all down until the water felt like air. And as I thought that I mustn't freeze enough that I’d wake myself up, I felt the water getting warmer, and warmer, until it became bearable.

I finally calmed down, and then my feet hit the ground. But instead of a dark stone pit filled with water, in front of my eyes there was a huge room, like uncle’s throne room but much, much more beautiful.

It glimmered with icicles and diamonds, the floor was sleek white marble and the ceiling-length stained glass windows shone blue and indigo, framed by ethereal, otherworldly fabric that swayed like plumes of frosty breath in winter. The room was cold, but nothing as bad as the pond had felt in the beginning.

And before me was that elf. A prince, or a king, I’d guess. Only, now he didn’t look like an ice statue. He moved, and he smiled at me so fondly! Oh, he was so beautiful... and his outstretched arm beckoned me closer.”

“Wha- what did you do?” stammers Cili, disbelieving.

“Well, I approached! Up close, he was even more stunning. Small snowflakes topped his fluttering lashes, and his eyes looked like the most precious of metals. Platinum. His hair was braided tightly and indeed where each strand crossed over the next, there were glimmering stones - not diamonds but shards of ice embedded in his white locks. His mouth was blood red, lips cracked and nearly bleeding as if he’d just trekked across the woods in the middle of a snowstorm just to meet me, and his cheeks were flushed with effort, as well.”

“And?” Cili sounds like she dreads to hear the rest of her dream.

“I took his hand. It was very, very cold, but I felt sorry for him, so it was almost a relief to feel that my own body heat seemed to be warming him up a bit. His pale skin regained some color and he beamed at me. Then he asked me if I had brought him any gifts.”

“Tippy… what have you done.” her voice is deadpan, Cili’s body next to Tippy’s has gone rigid and cold with fear. Tippy feels scared just from her cousin’s reaction, and hurriedly mumbles, “Nothing! I said I wasn’t aware I was meant to bring gifts, that I was sorry, that it had been rude of me to get into the Palace without gifts but I didn’t know where I was! Why? Why Cili, what is it?”

“What did he say next.”

“He, he… he looked disappointed. Sad. Then he brightened up and asked for my name.”

“How?”

“What?”

“How did he ask? The exact words.”

“Uhm… I don’t remember? I think he just said ‘Your name?’ probably.”

“And what did you say?”

“Tippy.” to that, Cili deflates, and takes a sigh of relief. “Good.”

“Well, actually… he looked quite crossed after I said that… and I woke up.”

“How do you feel now?” unconvinced, Ciliren must inquire, seeing as something seems to be amiss after that last detail from Tippy’s dream.

“Good? I mean, I’m a bit disappointed that the dream ended so abruptly, but otherwise, I feel great. Today was just like every other day. There wasn’t anything different, really…”

“Good, good.” Cili resumes breathing normally, and her body relaxes again. “I think that wasn’t an elf.”

“What, then?”

“A Fae. A powerful one, judging by the Palace.”

“A Fae? You mean, from the stories?”   
“They’re not stories. I studied them this year. There’s so much more. They’re magic. They’re dangerous. You’re lucky you awakened at all!”

Now it’s Tippy’s turn to go still under the blankets, momentarily taken aback by the apparent brush with death she’d narrowly avoided.

Cili strokes her arm, jostling the duvet, in reassurance, “It’s alright, you’re still here and everything’s okay.” and if Tippy’s arm feels colder, it’s probably because of the chilling awareness of how badly that dream could’ve gone.


End file.
